One of Dublin's foremost ballet teachers for over 50 years, Nina Tully, died on March 13th, aged 89.
Past pupils remembered the great discipline she instilled. Others said she "spoke with her eyes and her hands - poised, refined, right to the end".
Hundreds of children passed through her school, the Merrion School of Ballet, between its foundation in 1936 and eventual closure in 1988.
Nina Tully who was born on January 16th, 1911, to Dublin parents, was one of six children - three boys and three girls. They lived initially in Blackrock before moving to Merrion Road in Ballsbridge, when she was five years old. She would found her school and live there until just over two years ago.
Before founding the award-winning school she herself earned numerous accolades, particularly at the Fr Mathew Feiseanna and at the school where she took her first dancing steps - the now closed Madame Rock's Academy of Dancing, in Dublin's Marlborough Street.
At the age of 25 the accomplished classical ballerina built a studio at the back of the family home, and opened her school to children from the age of three. There were some boys but mainly girls - many brought along by mothers who had themselves been pupils of Nina Tully. Exams were taken through the Royal Academy of Dance in London and many pupils went on to further studies in Britain. Nina Tully is said to have had a great eye for a person's innate qualities and talents. Though particularly fond of choreographing Irish ballets, such as May Eve, she also put on Welsh, Russian and other European pieces. "She didn't push people beyond what they were capable of," said one former student, explaining why Nina Tully did not put on such classics as The Nutcracker or Swan Lake. She did, however, teach solo pieces from these ballets, among them the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy and the Dying Swan.
Her pupils danced these at theatres and competitions, mainly around Dublin.
Among many memorable performances were those in the Mansion House in 1945, at the Olympia Theatre in 1946, the now closed Queen's Theatre in 1951 and at the Royal Irish Academy between 1951 and 1959.
She supported charities and the matinee performances she organised included one in 1959, at the Gaiety Theatre in aid of the Central Remedial Clinic as well as others in aid of UNICEF, GOAL, children's hospitals and the Conquer Cancer Campaign.
In 1959, in perhaps one of her most significant contributions to classical ballet in Ireland, she was a founder member of the Irish Region of the Royal Academy of Dance, thereby bringing the support and infrastructure of that British body to the genre here.
Throughout all this she was very close to her older sister, Eileen Tully, who designed many of the costumes and sets and who kept the accounts and records at the school.
Together the two, neither of whom either married or regretted not doing so, enjoyed swimming, all kinds of theatre and travelling. Nina Tully especially loved Italy, which she and her sister visited regularly. When Eileen Tully died some years ago, it was a difficult time for her sister. But, her many friends rallied and a small committee was founded by some of her past pupils to look after the running of the school. It closed in 1988. Nina Tully was fully lucid and alert on her 89th birthday just two months ago, happily offering sherry and cake to visiting friends.
]Nina Tully: born 1911; died March, 2000